


Then and Again

by StrikeTeamDelta (panicsdownpour)



Category: Marvel (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: BuckyNat Mini-Bang, BuckyNat Mini-Bang 2017, F/M, Mention of a voyage into parenthood though it's not the focus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-23
Updated: 2017-03-23
Packaged: 2018-10-09 12:28:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10412175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/panicsdownpour/pseuds/StrikeTeamDelta
Summary: Starting over is often easier said than done, but everything old need not remain that way. Of course, there's no growing without the growing pains. Thin Mints and Lego bouquets make the process a little more enticing.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Buckynat Mini-Bang 2017! Fabulous artwork done by Miranda Leiggi! It was a pleasure working together, and I hope everyone enjoys our favorite Soviet assassins forever in love.

* * *

__

 

_“I can't trust my own mind. So, until they figure out how to get this stuff out of my head I think going back under is the best thing, for everybody.“_

 

Natasha was there, out of sight and probably out of mind, but there, when James Barnes, formerly known as the Winter Soldier -and in his better days as Sergeant Barnes- went under. And she was there when he reemerged, vaguely disoriented and not half as groggy as a man should be after sleeping for five months straight.

 

With as many questions as Natasha had been left with in the wake of the Accords mess and their relation to him, the time he was in cryo had been strangely welcome. Not because she didn't want him up and alive; he was the only one who knew exactly what she had been through, with variations, because he was the only one of those around her who had been there. But the sudden visit from the past was a lot to work through. She could safely call the snapshots of time they shared -molten, rushed, messy in the midst of a numbing sterility- the brighter spots in what was otherwise a traumatizing past. They were soldiers, lovers, partners, young. Two pieces of a flawless machine that found passion and humanity where there was no possibility. That was then, there. However long he was out of play, it bought Natasha time to work out where exactly he fit into her life now. For as many times as she had pulled a disappearing act, it was just as jarring to see a ghost reappear.

 

To see him again, as he had been, but largely not, brought her back to a moment in time that seemed to span for forever. They were soldiers, lovers, partners, young. Two pieces of a flawless machine that found passion and humanity where there was no possibility.

 

Steve was the one to alert her when the decision was made to bring Bucky out of the tank and back into the wider world. To an extent, of course. It was only signed and scheduled after a plan had been worked out for where he would live, how he would live, who would keep an eye on him and a plan for his readjustment. She had been one of the handful involved to consult on what measures should be taken to ensure his safety as well as others, and a smooth transition. The reason he had decided to go under was because of his control issues, and recurrence of old 'settings', for lack of a better term. Natasha had experience with the sort of techniques that had been used on him, and insight into what might work to make recovery happen. Natasha hadn't been the one to vouch for him, though. That had been Steve; he was the only one with a solid, open history with the man and maybe not the best track record when it came to containing him, but he was deemed the one with the best chance and the most equipped to handle things once he left the protection of Wakanda.

 

Natasha had been the second one to meet him, three days after he had been given an apartment in the central Wakandan research center. A scientist suite, not an observation room. The difference had been stressed.

 

From there things had progressed slowly. It started, as all things did for her, with meticulous observation. From chance meetings Natasha might have planned here or there, to visits when she was in the neighborhood, until eventually her trips grew longer and his grip on the pieces of his mind that Hydra hadn't melted and molded was tighter. Their conversations had started innocent and unassuming enough. Talk of therapy and culture, Natasha's alias building and how he was enjoying his stay. Unassuming chatter, until the questions came. First there had been looks though, that Bucky didn't bother to hide. Looks that tempted Natasha to hope, accompanied by silences and a lack of acknowledgement that told her she needn't bother. Until one lazy afternoon, in front of _The Irony of Fate_ , an old Russian comedy of Natasha's, it had come out -without a hint as to what was to come and without any real care in his tone even while his faith in his mind was unsteady.

 

"I remember you." Natasha had missed beat, but jumped to catch up when she could speak past the lump in her throat his confession brought. "I slept in your bed last night. I sort of hoped I'd be memorable enough for seven hours." He hadn't followed that same vein, just repeated as seriously, a smile twitching at his lips his only acknowledgement of the flirtatious joke. "I remember more than just Ivan, working together. I remember the alley. I remember the hiding. I remember us."

 

She had answered with a question, voice even and heart hammering. "Does Steve know?" Why it mattered to her, she wasn't entirely sure. She supposed she hadn't always been transparent with the man that had become one of her her closest friends. Not that she had more than a few. But then, she had hidden any close connections in the files she had released that would connect her to Steve’s childhood friend. No reason to risk hurting him. Bucky had answered with a sought after ‘no’. The evening wore on as if the blip never occurred. Their relationship snowballed in better ways from there, with the knowledge that base was there.

 

Bucky’s outbursts became less frequent and his memories continued to resurface until the gaps were far fewer than when he'd first had an inkling that something wasn't right. Eventually -finally- he was cleared for complete release. It wasn't just that he had found control over his programming; what with the issues he had had originally with the governments of the world, it was some amount of work to carve out a space in the outside world for him. There had been meetings and negotiations and alternate identities, a hard fought for niche in which James Barnes, the former Winter Soldier and American war hero, could integrate himself back into society within. This time, Natasha took it upon herself to sponsor him, in a manner of speaking. She would take responsibility for him, on paper- make sure he had the kind of support he needed, keep up with him. Make sure there wouldn't be any trouble if it could be helped, at least until he had established himself within society and to those in charge that he wasn't going to snap. That part was easy- there was no longer just a he or her. They had after a matter of months and an overwhelming number of breakdowns and brain picking, become an 'us'.

 

The transition was eighteen months from the present day. Initially they had largely fallen into old patterns set in new times. It wasn't difficult, really. Like riding a bike. It meant much was left unsaid and left to resurfaced habits that surfaced when the need was realized (acknowledged). A new world -a safer one, maybe- but the same relationship. There was something comforting about the way they melded back together once the memory of each other and the time they had spent together was there. They had been partners once, young and malleable, engineered on a level for each other. Made for each other.

 

As much as possible, Natasha did her best to preserve things just as they were when they had last been together, in those chilly memories. Shine things up but keep things the same. Move on the intelligence she had long held on him, what had become second knowledge, and disregard anything new that didn’t quite fit.

 

Natasha didn't see it as an issue; James had such a load to work through that the issue he could make out in his peripherals just couldn't take his attention. There wasn't possibly enough energy there for it, not when it wasn't of a top level importance- Natasha’s adjustment would come. About this, he would be proven correct.

 

In time, Natasha could no longer shake the feeling she was living in lies again. For years she had spent living among lies- lies she knew of and lies she didn’t, creating them and having them created around her. The Red Room. SHIELD. When it became too difficult to ignore anymore was when she decided she might try a different tactic, come at the issue of years- years shared, years forgotten, years apart- in a different way. How could she not, after watching Steve’s acceptance of his close friend’s changes and the patience -the grace- he had about it? Plus she had Clint’s talking to’s late into too many nights for someone with a small hoard of kids. She was gonna have to send the Bartons a gift basket sometime: Benadryl for the kiddos and wine for the adults. Maybe a coupon for some free babysitting.

 

Bucky spent a fair amount of his time working distance missions, computer-based and low-risk jobs, while seeing his own psychiatrist to help retrieve his memories while working out as much of his old programming as possible. As thoroughly aware as he was that much of it was there to stay, what he could discard he wanted to and what he couldn’t he would learn control over. He was going to keep his freedom, and choose who he was going to be now. All the while, they learned the steps to to the dance that was acclimating, growing into something cohesive- a working unit, up-to-date. It was a slow, painstaking process, but growing pains always came before growth. For Natasha, the hardest part was acceptance of changes that time brings, beyond the superficial. James ad been her refuge at a time, and she had to stop idolizing a ghost if they were going to last instead of burn out.

 

Some fifteen months post-resettlement, things changed again that both could have been considered to be a feather in James' cap of recovery and a threat to his stability, despite his petitioning for the possible natural disaster. The disaster in question was a little girl with dark hair chopped uneven and short, like she'd tried to give it a trim herself. Once they came to know her, Natasha wouldn't be surprised if she had. Dark brown eyes and skin with blotches of purple from the hard trip. A worker at an orphanage condemned after a SHIELD mission snuck her in luggage among the mess of it the crew had packed up when leaving, the mission a bust aside from two discovered sleeper cell agents using the orphanage as a cover up. While Natasha was no longer an Avenger, she worked occasional missions as something of a subcontractor, when she wasn't working with the patched up team Steve had assembled out of the crew who had escaped the fight in Berlin and found themselves in need of work. Maria had called because she knew she was working a gig in the area.

 

Roughly four hundred miles and a case put on the back burner later, Natasha had one James Barnes on her in-ear, telling her to bring her back. Maria had already asked if they might be able to keep the girl until they could figure out the paperwork and legality of the matter, the international issues and how they would handle it all. Four days and James was petitioning for them to keep her till a more permanent solution was available, one that wasn't a group home, and Natasha was relatively less argumentative because, well, she hadn't had the best experience in a group settings.

 

It added to the madness, the emotional instability, the stress, but it had also added a level of emotional depth to the apartment that made it feel more like a home. Natasha wasn't sure what it was -the honesty of a child, or the way their place always looked lived in whether she'd been home to live in it in two weeks or not- but she was alright with it. As a temporary situation, James thought it could be good for the all of them. It wasn't exactly how she'd known him to be, but she took it, because she sort of kind of agreed.

 

All that said, they were still in the midst of a lot of work that didn't even begin to deal with their four year old house guest. Just such work was the first thing Natasha had on her mind tonight, as she hit the first preset number in the car's screen.

 

* * *

 

"Do you think we'd fail Clint's whole couples thing if I stood you up?"

 

Natasha was on the expressway back to their apartment, trying to skirt their evening plans while listening to her other half -God she hated that expression- swear beneath his breath over the car's Bluetooth, muttering about stringing up her cat and firing their babysitter. Like they could afford to do that. Sharon Carter was one of roughly three people Natasha and James had been able to agree they trusted enough with the girl-that-was-not-theirs, and she spent time with Alya for the cost of Natasha's advice and involvement in the hacking she couldn't manage on her own. It worked for the trio of them, for the most part. James had split the day with Sharon to give himself time to decompress; he had had the earlier half of the day, and in that amount of time, the two girls had had what sounded to be more fun than they could hide and possibly driven Liho to shred another couch cushion in all her stress. Natasha, meanwhile, had been gone for the better part a fortnight, working intel and retrieval on a small terror cell in Szeged. The retrieval part hadn't gone quite as planned, held her up for two extra days, but now she was nearly home and still in a bodysuit beneath her sweats and hoodie she'd changed into after waking moments from landing back in the States via private jet. All things considered, her request to skip the plans the couple had made on Clint"s suggestion, of all people, sounded reasonable to her. James somehow was less inclined to agree. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to- though she still hadn’t been able to kick the inclination to resist the faintly unsettling process of learning and relearning each other. It was more that Alya woke up before seven on a regular basis and Natasha was nursing sore _everything_ plus the knife wound to the leg she had yet to get the stitches out of. All in all, as in love with tall, dark, and handsome as she was, a date wasn’t exactly what she was inclined to tonight.

 

"Clint said that Laura told him to tell us that their guy says it's important. I'm pretty sure the guy said 'vital'. That doesn't sound important to you? It's one date, Talia," came his answer over the speaker, met with an eye-roll from the redhead as she turned onto a side ramp for their exit. "I swear it'll be good. Besides, Alya is exhausted. It'll be a late morning, and if it's not, I got 'er. Scout's honor," he continued, the sound of dishes clinking behind the roughness of his voice, the faucet flipping on following close.

 

"Mhm." It was as non-committal a sound as Natasha could manage, but it wasn't a 'no'. She knew he would know that as she hung up the phone, but not before she could make out the sound of Liho whining for attention and the cough of a laugh that the feline received in answer.

 

When the shrink they'd started seeing on Clint's recommendation -or rather Laura Barton's, and Clint had begrudgingly endorsed- suggested they pretend they were starting from the very beginning. Natasha had been somewhat skeptical. What good was that supposed to do? Sure they had been apart for years before Odessa and the Accords brought them back into one another's paths, eventually twining together in the aftermath of the warring. But there was so much history there that they'd pieced together -memories they shared and memories they'd told to each other- that spending their time on first date formalities when life and their relationships were as overwhelming as they ever had been seemed like a waste of time. A nice thought, but a waste of time. They weren't children- they didn't need to pretend. James felt just the opposite. Working on his own recovery in Wakanda had sent him back State side with a willingness to try just about anything labeled therapy, and with more openness than Natasha had. After several weeks and a private reconsidering of her previous stance, she had decided that there was more potential for good than anything else in beginning again. And so at some point she had begrudgingly agreed to a first date with the man she already shared her life with and hadn't given it much of a thought since then.

 

Still, when Natasha had imagined the whole thing playing out, it hadn't involved their apartment looking like the devil had torn through. It hadn't involved a kid in their guest room or her cat held in detention in the master bathroom. And it certainly hadn't involved so much exhaustion.

 

And yet there she was twenty minutes post-phone conversation, met with all that and a glass of what she prayed wasn't 100% grape juice, held out by James who looked about as tired as she did but twice as enthusiastic. Three months earlier, before they'd added even more to their plate, she had convinced him to let her cut his hair. He had decided he could use the change and the added ability to see past his too-long locks. It had long since grown back and she was only just realizing he needed one again. Funny what you noticed when you took a breather. Peering in past the man to the mess just visible from the entryway, she closed her eyes, took a deep breath. She opened them once she'd let go, finding a fairly solid smile once she'd opened them. Natasha was going to give it a fair shot, especially if the wine was it. Of course, knowing him, she wasn't getting away with anything. “So we’re doing this, hmm?” She asked, kicking her sneakers off and letting him help her off with the zip up she'd pulled on over her clothes. Pressing a brief kiss to her shoulder, he tossed the gray hoodie over a hook just beside the door and leading her by the hand to the wreckage of their living room. Technically it was hers, but he spent far more time there than anywhere else; it was only ‘just hers’ on paper anymore. Once they were in the doorway and James had flicked on the television to what looked like _Sixteen Candles_ , Natasha couldn't help but laugh at the sight. Illuminated by the pale light of the screen was a crudely constructed tent, the open end facing them and revealing a small collection of pillows, a blanket, and a plate of Thin-Mint cookies. Plus a bottle of wine conspicuously placed at the front- a good call. “You’re sure you don't want to reschedule? I'm a little under-dressed,” she pointed out, though the humor was clear in her tone as she gestured with a hand at her half-casual, half-SHIELD issued attire. At that point she was just making up excuses for the fun of bothering him, exhaling a soft laugh as he shook his head and pulled her into the room, plopping down among the set up, which happened to be surrounded by evidence of the day.

 

“I know it's not the most romantic-” he offered, hitting the DVD remote to start the movie while topping off her glass. Interrupting, the redhead cut him off with her glass halfway to her lips. “Oh hush. Seriously? It might be the most sickly romantic first date I've ever been on. You know I don't go home with anyone on the first date, right?” She replied, brows lifted in playful question. Yeah, she'd play along, at least for a while. The whole date idea did look better when she didn't have to bother going out on 2 hours of sleep and 6 am school drop-off wake up time. God, she was getting old, or something. But she would play along, and see how things played out. Maybe James was onto something. They’d just have to see how lucky he got after movie’s end. He'd certainly get points, though; maybe what they needed were a few chances at a new start. A date in a tent with cookies dipped in wine was definitely a new start.

 

As innocent and unassuming as the evening was, it was the first Natasha felt like reevaluating their relationship might be in order. Not reevaluating its existence, but- That night starting over -starting new- wasn't so scary. Refreshing even. There was certainly less work to do, when you weren’t trying to constantly pretend things weren’t as they were.

 

A Lego bouquet he had fashioned out of a mishmash of Alya's tiny bricks and their shared shoddy attention spans -plus Natasha's having to admit that the setup was cheesy vaguely romantic- led to buzzed make-out session and a move upstairs that spelled the end of the night. Though not exactly as planned. It seemed that in the midst of the day's fun, there were no fewer than half a dozen toys scattered across their bed, a Barbie to step on, and an entire missions work of exhaustion intent on killing the mood. After James failed to control his laughter for a second time -how many stuffed animals did their little house guest have?- Natasha had announced she would fall asleep on top of him if he insisted the romantics go on. It was a comfortable death to the seduction of the evening; they were both too tired, too giggly, too aware of how early a pre-schooler woke. It hadn't kept them from conversation, though, cuddled among the mess and pleasantly mellowed once laughter left them. No argument- it wasn't anything like their earlier days. But Natasha fell asleep knowing it was good. 

 

* * *

 

Blame it on her love affair with Thin-Mints, but that first date was enough to push Natasha faster in her pursuit of him, in her relearning of everything that she had intentionally blinded herself to or had become blind to just in the business of their ever-racing day-to-day. So a half week later, after careful observation and sly questioning -nobody ever told her information extraction training was good for relationships- she decided a full-scale assault was in order. Natasha was calculated but she wasn’t one to let potential discomfort scare her off. It was this decision that led them to discussing the merits of orange soda versus Pepsi and whether he missed his hair long because he was into hair pulling or he just liked Alya’s braiding them into knots.

 

“Have you ever thought about switching careers?”

 

They were on an intel and extraction mission, dealing with a drug cartel linked to multiple terror organizations. Gaylin-Parlor Public Hospital had been shut down and three years earlier subsequently converted into what zoning paperwork called office space. Over the course of the last eight months, Natasha, Steve, and Bucky had been surveilling the property on the sly, once strange movement and an uptick in terror related incidents in the area were traced back to a signal emitted from the West Wing building. It was primarily an intel extraction job -grab names, motives, preferably technological files, with the added caveat that they aid any unwilling participants in the activity if found. It was a prime spot for keeping hidden abductees until the time was right for a ransom demand that could help fund further illicit activities. Sam and Steve would run a more heavy-handed run once they were more solid on what exactly was going on. Tasked with the somewhat tedious job of picking through the three separate buildings that comprised the West Wing, in order to find the one that connected to the main area, it left some time to chat.

 

"Should I be taking a hint?" Bucky snorted at the question, spotting her landing from where he had already crouched to the ground, the overgrown grass providing mild cover. Landing on her feet, light and lithe as the dancer she had once masqueraded as, and again he had to admire her grace in everything, somehow. A shrug of her shoulders and she was off, leading them with a map strapped to her wrist like a watch, leaving him to follow, pistol drawn to cover her. “You know, going back to school, learning to build chairs?” she clarified, hitting the ground silently when one light switched off, and another on the building nearest them, two men walking along a warm path some hundred yards off. did a double take, brows knitting in question. “Guard switch?” he offered, ignoring her question until all was still and silent again, aside from the breeze tousling the brush and weeds. “I failed home ec or whatever it was called in high school, and I liked school but school didn’t always like me too much. I don’t know if it was too much of the smart ass thing, or what. But school...I don’t know.” Sam crackled in on his right ear piece and no doubt Natasha’s too. “Smart ass? That come as a surprise to you, Red?” Bucky rolled his eyes, ignored the light jab and concentrated his energy on knocking the lighting system out around the unit. A whisper about his favorite soda, whether he believed in ghosts. A broken lock and they were in. “Next question: has anyone ever accidentally seen the goods?” Out of left field, Bucky did all he could do not to sputter, while Steve almost audibly rolled his eyes and Sam made an audible sound of disgust. “What are you reading these out of Cosmo or something?” Bucky hissed, thoroughly aware they had roughly a quarter dozen people back in the jet monitoring their in-ears, all three friends. Natasha’s muffled sniffle of laughter told him she was just as aware. “Very funny. If you’ve gotta know, got caught skinny dipping in a swimming hole back in thirty-nine. By the preacher and his wife from down at the old Baptist church on Bleecker, when my family was out visiting my cousins. I was out there with the girl next door and I think that’s when I sealed myself a trip to hell. Steve knows that one. Minus the skinny-dipping part,” he admitted, his lips pressing into a tight smile to keep laughter at bay as he pressed himself tight to against the wall, weapon drawn. Whatever had gotten into Natasha, if she didn’t get them killed tonight, that’d be a miracle. Where all the questions were coming from, he had no idea, but he had to admit it was pretty funny. Never short on the surprises. Of course, he had to question whether she was doing mostly to rile him up, to annoy Sam, or embarrass Steve, what with some of them. If there was any greater reason, he was in the dark and curious. And so it went, all through the evening- Natasha peppering him with questions between blows and sneaking, until Bucky was more in his head that in the mission at hand. And that was saying something; only Natasha could override his programming and decades of training with questions about his favorite cookies and whether he preferred crowds or quiet.

 

The mission went south right around the middle of a ‘when I was your age, in Brooklyn’ answer, and even with her self-assigned mission, Natasha let it fall to the wayside in favor of their priority; she was too well-trained for that. A handful of bruises for Natasha, a busted lip for Bucky, and a brushes with death for the targets they’d encountered, the mess seemed to be winding down and after some amount of searching, hack work, and opposition, Natasha was able to secure the object of their foye. Nearly crushed it in hand in her haste to conceal it, after a stray grunt tried a last minute attack while her partner was occupied, Natasha kicked the piece to a just-freed up super soldier and  Chip in hand, Bucky watched in mix awe and admiration while radio-ing out for their getaway- after all, Natasha could handle herself, and quite obviously had the situation under control. The guy had since lost the switchblade he had nicked her with, and was trying desperately to avoid the shoulder dislocation she had in progress. A short scream spoke to her success, a thud accompanying as she knocked him down against the cement, a knee over his shoulder to combat a desperate one-armed attempt at fighting her off.

 

“One more thing- I swear” she asked, saccharine sweet as she pressed her forearm into her would-be assailants throat. Bucky lifted a brow, ready for the assist, though at a loss for what they hadn’t completed. Her tone should have tipped him off, but he was a little out of practice and back in the zone.

 

“Boxers or briefs?”

* * *

 

 

There were things Natasha had noticed, new things she’d picked up on that didn’t fit her memories. The gentleness with Alya, the way she was so painfully deliberate, spent more time thinking than doing. How he was loud when they could be, filled silence with sound more often that not. Like a child, so enamored with their own voice and ability that not to use the gift was unthinkable.. How in those now even rarer dark, sweaty evenings, she rarely felt the cool steel of his metal hand on her, where he had once left dime bruises from the pads of his fingers. Or how he  .She had been doing as much as she could to support him, while stopping short of acknowledging that change and what it meant for them, and fittingly letting go. That night she did.

 

As fate would have it, Laura had offered to keep Alya for the night, since she’d gotten on so well with the rest of the Barton clan and had fallen fast asleep on the trundle bed in Layla’s room anyway. Yeah, they were going to have to double-down on the gift basket idea. Whether it was the occasional tease of a question thrown in between more inquisitive ones, or all the adrenaline still running rampants in their systems, the blissfully empty house made it perfectly acceptable for the both of them to find themselves wrapped up in the other barely inside the door. Navigating toys and the occasional crunch of a stray goldfish cheese cracker, James had a hand fisted into her hair and the devil’s smile on his lips as they kissed and Natasha peeled off his tact gear off one velcro strap at a time. It was once they actually made it to their bedroom that everything slowed and the frantic was replaced by a thoughtful passion. Natasha was intentional this time, paying attention and moving with the intention of gathering and executing based on new intel. What good was old intel, anyway? All this time it had been much of what she worked from- what she remembered of him instead of what was there in front of her, or what was concealed but revealed if only she asked. Instead of chiding him, she swallowed the groans he couldn’t or didn’t want to control- because he had spent decades clutching painfully to control, his fingers closed around it until the sharpness of it dug to bone, through no choice of his own.  She didn’t revert back to those early frigid nights, she didn’t recreate the last memory she held of them, not again. Awareness had jarred her, and she needed to figure out what the new intel was. If she held doubts of whether it was all in her head, the way the tension in his shoulders melted and -- told her he might not have been trying to tell her, but that well honed sense for him had known before she consciously did. She resists the urge to steer them to known waters when he is gentle where once he might have drawn blood, and finds she likes it when she’s not comparing, when she’s not suffocating in fear of all this new because she doesn’t know this and she always knows. It was in her programming.

 

She had pressured him, in ways , to be exactly as she had remembered, because what if those people fit together, but not these. Forced to conform to old habits while rehabilitating from the person -the machine- they’d been. Working bad intel was the cornerstone of operations set to fail. Every thing she had been trained to know wasn’t wrong.

 

 

* * *

 

Feelings caught up with Natasha late that night, not so long after Bucky had fallen asleep with an arm thrown haphazardly around her waist, the other curled around his pillow. At the first sight of dawn peeking between the gauzy curtains they’d picked out together, the Natasha slipped away towards the shower. Taking her sports bag and a few other selects from her side of dresser, she had readied herself hastily in the guest bath down the hall to minimize the chances the man fast asleep in bed might wake and notice her escape.

 

Emotion did that to her. Made her restless. Made her run.  Her head was cloudy with it; she prided herself on a clear, reliable mind. Otherwise, the emotion wasn’t bad- more it was just a lot to sift through. So she left to find space to clear it, away from James’ warm breath on the back of her neck and the firm press of his body against hers. Some place unweighted. Funnily enough, the freest place she knew that wasn’t a plane while she flew under an alias was the community theater a little ways away, fashioned out of what used to be a church just outside the D.C. border. They had begun taking Alya to it so she could burn some of that fiery energy away that so endeared her to them. Natasha hadn’t swiped the keys, though it would have been easiest; she had casually befriended the mother of a student in Alya’s performance classes. It was worth it, to have fairly free access to a space that was infrequently used and mostly hers to use as she wished, whether to hide or to put her own long-held skills to use. Dance had somehow become cathartic for her, therapeutic. Everything old really did become new again. She had reclaimed the sport of sorts, from the cover up that it had once been, to link it with something new, something good. Her recovery, her new life. It helped to unburden her and take the focus from her own stressors to the way her ankle bowed or her waist bent, the way she met the music. The perfect place for such a morning. James might find her later, but for now, she would accept only the music's intrusion into her mind. James would be there in time.

* * *

 

Bucky was not surprised to find her gone when he woke, her side of the bed having long grown cold, testifying to hours passed since it held her lithe form. Instead of her, he was greeted by the sound of Clint Barton rapping on the doors, letting himself in with the spare key but busying the little girl with settling in and morning cartoons, presumably in case her parents needed an extra few minutes to wake up and remember their responsibilities.Bucky was silently amused and openly appreciative, greeted the two with sweatpants pulled on and a worn ragged sweatshirt of Natasha’s tight over bare chest, the quickest appropriate outfit he could find. 

 

It was another hour before he could assemble the little girl into something that let them leave the house, Bunny the teddy bear in hand and two coloring books, incase one just didn’t cut it and a drawing frenzy ensued. The sounds of Tchaikovsky floated down from the speakers nested up in the rafters, near the front of the small, airy room where Natasha paused in her dancing for but a moment. Then she was off again, melding seamlessly within the new style when the music changed to an arrangement that must have been a pick for the classical set the school was working out with the older students. Certainly a classic, if ever there was one; she would have danced to the silence or a track picked from memory if she had to; she wasn’t ready to still just yet, nor had she worked through the chink in her armor just yet. 

 

"Alya adores you for good reason, you know?” came that deep, familiar voice from off to her left, footsteps circling around behind. The sound of footsteps on the squeaky set of side stage stairs, and she was no longer alone sashaying around the floor. Bucky’s hair was still mussed from sleep, a rumpled tee shirt and jeans speaking to the morning he had had. But he didn’t let his lack of dancewear stop him, waiting until she couldn’t help but dance close to make a request. "May I have this dance?" Natasha rolled her eyes but stopped all the same, waiting until he near squirmed under her stare before cracking a smile and holding a hand out. "I guess I can't say I'm already taken, hmm?" 

 

“"No, I guess you can't. Or you could, but you won't. I'm much to charming to be blown off like that."

Natasha huffed at that, settled herself in for a slow step as the song wound down and a new one readied to take its place. The stretch of silence between songs gave Bucky his chance to speak up, and so he did. 

 

"...What is it?" he questioned, lifting an inquisitive brow. He received a blank look from the woman in his arms, wiped clean of any incriminating expression. "What is what?" she replied. 

 

"You know,” he pushed, “I dunno, but there's something going on in there, and I have the feeling it's not good." Frank Sinatra’s crooning began behind them, and Natasha had wondered who had designed the God-awful mix. "Your feeling is wrong." She nearly cut Bucky off in her haste to correct him. The man shrugged it off, held his arm out and up for a spin. "That's becoming a pattern, lately,” he noted unabashedly, “but I'm getting used to it. So what is it? What’s on your mind? Honest."

 

Natasha resisted the ever so tempting urge to brush him off. But they were supposed to be nothing if not honest with each other. He had become honest nearly to a fault, in his efforts to rebuild. 

 

"It's- honestly ridiculous."

 

Bucky offered a smile he had hoped might be encouraging. "Lucky for you, I've got plenty of experience with ridiculous. Lay it on me, darling." The Brooklyn accent that normally set a warmth in her belly pulled a laugh from her despite herself. He was all over the place. If Steve was the man out of time, Bucky was the man stretched through time. “You owe me- left me all alone this morning- thought last night was special,” he teased. "If you and the kid weren't feeding my ego all the time, I don't know what my little heart woulda done by now." 

 

“Real funny, Barnes.” Natasha pursed her lips, seemed to be considering how to phrase just right what she had to say. When she had, the words came out simple and matter of fact. “I was worried our time was up.” Dark brows rose in equal parts confusion and concern, Bucky doing his best to treat lightly. “That sounds a little dramatically, uh, pessimistic. And kind of ominous,” he replied. He went for the twirl and she used it for an extra moment to think, shaking her head when they were face to face again. 

 

“I wasn’t sure we could make it. The jump.”

 

“Ya lost me.”

 

“The jump,” she pushed, losing her step and nearly coming to a stop. If she was going to need to explain, she was going to make sure she got it right. “It’s been a long time and- some things aren’t timeless.” 

 

It was a matter-of-fact statement that came out sounding so sadly sappy, she wished she hadn’t said it once it was out there. She shook the regret quickly though; she wasn’t fond of holding regrets, or she would have too many to bear.

 

“Darling, you’re timeless to me.”

 

“Be serious,” she insisted, concentrating more on her feet than on his face. “I spent, I don’t know, eighty odd years without a sense o’ humor,” he said, tempering the gentle smile that spread. “But fine. I don’t get it,” he replied honestly, the smile fading ever so slightly. “I was worried-” She thought the conversation might never end. “- about what would be left if we tried again. Without what happened the first time. I was worried that-” 

 

Bucky cut her off, his words soft and the end of his statement upturned like a question. “That a fresh start would leave nothing left. And that God-awfulness was the only way we could have this,” a moment later adding as if to explain his thinking. “Therapy.Then why the twenty questions? And agreeing to all the dates, and...all of that? Kinda confused,” he admitted, and as much was obvious.

 

“A hunch.” In truth, Natasha didn’t know how to explain her change of heart in a way that didn’t make her feel too exposed for comfort.  _ Forget to remember… _ the crooner sang from the speakers, and she pulled them both to a stop that nearly made the other trip. “It was bad intel. On you. I figured out if we were making it work going on decades old intel, then an update...I’m willing to take my chances on it. Never had anyone die on good information,” she reasoned, and it made enough sense to him, if it did to her. Relieved there was no greater issue besides their preschooler growing restless watching from the floor in front, and Natasha’s growing comfort zone, he decided a suggestion wasn’t out of line. 

 

“Slow down a little. Pace yourself.” Bucky tugged her into a simple step-and-step, a sniff of a laugh escaping at the little girl dancing in his peripheral. A stuffed bear was clearly partner enough for her.

 

“That’s not in my programming. But I might be willing to give it a shot. But you have to swear I have the time. Between you and Steve, you don’t have the best track record, ” Natasha pointed out, shaking a few loose locks of hair away from her face in time for the warm press of lips against hers, leaving her no choice but to give him the last word. Or a try at it. 

  
“We’ve got time,” he murmured. “Trust me.”


End file.
